List of German inventions and discoveries

German inventions and discoveries are ideas, objects, processes or techniques invented, innovated or discovered, partially or entirely, by Germans. Often, things discovered for the first time are also called inventions and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two.

Germany has been the home of many famous inventors, discoverers and engineers. Ottomar Anschütz and the Skladanowsky brothers were early pioneers of film technology, while Paul Nipkow and Karl Ferdinand Braun laid the foundation of television with their Nipkow disk and cathode ray tube respectively.^[2][3] Hans Geiger was the creator of the Geiger counter, while Carl von Linde developed the modern refrigerator.^[4] Konrad Zuse built the first fully automatic digital computer (Z3) and the first commercial computer (Z4).^[5][6] German inventors, engineers and industrialists as Ferdinand von Zeppelin,^[7] Otto Lilienthal, Karl Drais, Werner von Siemens, Hans von Ohain, Henrich Focke, Gottlieb Daimler, Rudolf Diesel, Hugo Junkers and Karl Benz helped shape transportation technology; Drais invented the bicycle, Benz created the first practical car, and Lilienthal has been hailed as the "father of aviation".^[8][9] Aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun developed the first space rocket and later became a prominent member of NASA, developing the Saturn V Moon rocket. Heinrich Hertz's work in the domain of electromagnetic radiation was pivotal to the development of modern telecommunication.^[10] Karl Ferdinand Braun invented the phased array antenna in 1905,^[11] which led to the development of radar, smart antennas and MIMO, sharing the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi "for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".^[12] Philipp Reis constructed the first device to transmit a voice via electronic signals and for that the first modern telephone,^[13][14] while also coining the term.^[15]

Georgius Agricola gave chemistry its modern name. He is generally referred to as the father of mineralogy and as the founder of geology as a scientific discipline, while Justus von Liebig is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry.^[16] Otto Hahn is the father of radiochemistry and discovered nuclear fission, the scientific and technological basis for the utilization of atomic energy. Emil Behring, Ferdinand Cohn, Paul Ehrlich, Robert Koch, Friedrich Loeffler and Rudolph Virchow were among the key figures in the creation of modern medicine, while Koch and Cohn were also founders of microbiology.^[17]

Johannes Kepler was one of the founders and fathers of modern astronomy, the scientific method, natural and modern science.^[18][19][20] Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays.^[21] Albert Einstein introduced the special relativity and general relativity theories for light and gravity in 1905 and 1915 respectively. Along with Max Planck, he was instrumental in the creation of modern physics with the introduction of quantum mechanics, in which Werner Heisenberg and Max Born later made major contributions.^[22] Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg and Born all received a Nobel Prize for their scientific contributions; from the award's inauguration in 1901 until 1956, Germany led the total Nobel Prize count.^[23] Today the country is ranked third with 115 winners.

The movable-type printing press was invented by German blacksmith Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. In 1997, Time Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium.^[24] In 1998, the A&E Network ranked Gutenberg as the most influential person of the second millennium on their "Biographies of the Millennium" countdown.^[24]

The following is a list of inventions, innovations or discoveries known or generally recognised to be German.